Playing Zuma is my kind of homework. But this week’s activity’s did pose an interesting question: Can games be useful in an academic library setting. At first glance I wasn’t sure, but then I remembered two things:
1. I heard once that there was a chemistry prof on the east coast that was well known for putting the really hard to remember concepts and formulas to music, which made them easy to remember. Games can work in a similar way: there is an amazing amount of stuff to remember, but players can remember and apply their knowledge incredibly fast under stressful circumstances.
2. When I was in elementary school, we had a Commodore Amiga, and one of the only games we had was “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiago”. My sister and I played that game so much that the Almanac that came with the game was bent, tattered and torn. But to this day, I can still tell you that the capital of San Marino is San Marino. In our heyday, we knew currencies, capitals, landmarks…..
Games would work well teaching the nitty gritty, boring details. Like, how about some kind of catalogue game? One of the games I played was Diner Dash, which made me think that any day to day activity can be converted into a game format. Instead of waiting tables, you can be running the circulation desk alone. Games could give the player an insight into how the library functions.
